Good things come to those who wait... or perhaps more appropriately, good things come to those who work hard at what they do. Such is the case with Los Angeles, CA-based Black Metal legion SOTHIS, who have indeed been working hard to establish a name for themselves over the years. Now, SOTHIS have just signed their first-ever recording contract with Candlelight Records, a label that has had a long history of reliable acts on their roster. They've now acquired yet another very promising act in SOTHIS, who will undoubtedly unleash havoc upon the world with their first full-length album, "De Oppresso Liber", which is scheduled for release on September 2. Vocalist Drogoth sat down exclusively with METALEATER to talk about the new album, how the band landed the deal with Candlelight, and what it was like working with KING DIAMOND guitarist Andy LaRocque in the studio.

Lots has happened since we last talked. I know that you have a brand new album coming out - your first full-length album, "De Oppresso Liber", and you signed with Candlelight and you re-signed with Jeff Keller Management. Let's talk about the new album first - I know you guys have been working on it for a couple of years...

"Yeah, we're always writing new material so... a few of the songs on it were written before we went out on our last tour. So when we went out and played the shows between here in LA and in Texas and back, we played I think three of the songs from the new album. We were playing them live. The audiences we played them for were in Mexico (too) and that was just part of our set because those were some of the songs we thought were the strongest. We were playing songs from the demo that people knew and also songs that we had intended to put on the new album. So yeah, I mean as far as when we were writing, it's not really a concept album so it's not like we were like trying to write towards one theme. It was just all the things that we were doing including booking shows and sort of making the steps that we needed to further the band. Meanwhile, we're always writing, so. These are just the last songs that we wrote that we felt that were worth releasing. So we have nine new original songs that will be on the album."

Do you have the final track listing?

"Yes. It would be pointless in saying it (at this time), because I mean, they're just song titles. I can tell you the names of the songs that we played live that will be on the album. They are 'Lair Of The Benighted' - that's our oldest song that was not on the demo. We had that one written when we recorded the demo, but just for the time and money we had to do the demo we just chose four songs instead of five, and that's why it didn't make it on the demo. We've been playing that one live probably for the longest. Then the other two that we were playing live are 'Of Night And Silence' and the other one is 'Obsidian Throne'. We actually found out that that was the name of a band called OBSIDIAN THRONE in Texas. We actually played in front of the members (laughs). When I said the name of the song he was like 'Hey, that's my band!'"

Are you serious?

"Yeah, seriously. He gave me a copy of the CD after we played so I have it. It's good to see how hard it is to come up with original names. I thought that I just made it up (laughs) and there is a band with the name, you know."

Yeah, and that's why I think that there are a lot of these Metalcore bands coming up with these four word band names. Just like you were telling me before there is an Italian band called SOTHIS too. It's hard to be original.

"That's correct. It is. It's really difficult because no matter what you do... like when we first heard about the other SOTHIS, it was like 'Oh jeez, are we supposed to change our name or what?' But (laughs)... I don't know what do, you know. It's like fuck, well we don't know very many people at all that have heard of them, so it's like hopefully we'll just be more successful and it won't really be an issue."

So tell me about how you guys got to work with Andy LaRocque (KING DIAMOND).

"Okay. There's really not much of a story behind it. Basically when we had the album getting close to being finished, we knew that we wanted to have somebody mix it that was obviously skilled and professional, and we also wanted somebody that had a decent name in the Metal scene, just from the interest of helping us to promote the CD, to find someone to release it. We just thought it would be cool to have somebody that people would recognize as far as the name goes. We talked to a few people. Another person that was considered was Devin Townsend from up in your neck of the woods. We talked to Devin and he was interested but busy and it was sort of like 'Well, why don't you guys just sort of tell me when you want to do it and I'll tell you whether or not I'm available.' We talked to him back and forth but just due to the discussions within the members ourselves, we figured that Andy is probably a better fit for us. Although, I am extremely curious as to what would have happened if Devin Townsend would have gotten his hands on it (laughs) because he is such an original guy, and as far as his style goes, I'm just wondering what it would sound like if he was the one that mixed it. But we went with Andy, and basically we just contacted him via e-mail through his studio's website. His studio is called Sonic Train Studios... and we just sent him an e-mail saying 'Hey look, we're interested in working with you.' - and he's like 'Absolutely! I love it. I'd love to work on this.' So we booked him and then Dross, the drummer, and I flew out to Sweden to work on it with him. Dross produced the album; he also engineered the recording of everything, so he's definitely got the most hand on the album. In the mixing session, I was just sort of there as a third set of ears, you know. So I was in the room the whole time, but I pretty much just let Andy and Dross just work on it, and if I had an opinion I'd speak up, but for the most case, I was just in the back on my laptop (laughs) - writing shit. I worked on the album cover a little bit while I was over there, but for the most part I just let Dross and Andy work and then when they wanted a tie-breaker opinion on something I'd lend my two cents. I was a pretty space though. We definitely dug working with Andy. He's a great guy and very talented. We're obviously all KING DIAMOND fans so we were stoked to work with somebody that we had been listening to since we were teenagers."

How long did it take to mix the album in total?

"We spent two weeks on it. We worked for five days and we took the weekend off and then worked for the second set of five days, so ten days total - full days of work. So we were basically done on the ninth day - the tenth day we just did some final tweaks and dumped all the files back down to our hard drives, that way we could have all the shit when we got back. Yeah."

So were you guys able to soak up a bit of Sweden while you were there?

"Yeah, definitely. We didn't do a whole lot of traveling. We were there in January so I was expecting a lot of snow, you know. You think of the frosty north - Sweden and Norway and stuff. The weekend between working with Andy we took the train up to Oslo 'cause we wanted to check out Norway. It was like nice out. I mean, you still needed a jacket but there was not a flake of snow to be seen and it was just like 'Ah this sucks, man!' (laughs) We live in Southern California so we don't see snow unless we go looking for it, so we were kinda looking forward to checking out some of the weather, but it was just sort of cold - and in Sweden it was cold and drizzly and then one day it was just like psychotically windy (laughs). But now snow. We spent some time in Gothenburg. Gothenburg is about 45 minutes north of Varburg where the studio was, so we spent a couple of Friday nights up in Gothenburg and then at some Rock N' Roll bars. We met a lot of really cool metalheads and it was really cool. We definitely dug the people there and dug the scene. It was pretty cool."

So in your experience being over there, would you say that the Metal scene is flourishing as much as everyone says it is over there?

"Um...I feel it would be presumptuous of me to try and speak on the scene in a town that I only spent two weeks at, you know (laughs), and barely spent any time out at all. I mean, there was basically one bar in Gothenburg called Rockbaren, which basically means rock bar in Swedish, and that was the coolest place that we liked hanging out. It was like a pretty big club. It wasn't like they were playing bands, it was just a bar where they were playing music and it was two stories - pretty decent sized club, and on a Friday night it got pretty packed - the lines of people waiting to get in from outside. I don't really see that in LA but you see people lined up to go see shows when live bands are playing, but just the regular bar hang out, I don't see that at all in LA. I know I've heard of other places in the U.S. where there are things like that, but I've never seen it around here, so. That's sort of an indication of the scene. I have a friend who was on tour with another band called LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT - he's the drummer for that band - and he was in Helsinki, Finland and he said Helsinki is just a huge Metal town. He said it's like the Metal capital of Europe. That makes me want to go check it out. As far as me commenting on whether or not the scene is flourishing in Sweden, I can tell you there's one bar (laughs) where there's a lot of metalheads and definitely speaks to the wider scene I would imagine - the fact that there's just tons of metalheads out there hanging out and bullshitting with each other. Seems like the scene there is pretty cool, but we didn't see any shows while we were there, so we really can't get into that."

Now you guys were shopping around for a label for a long time. How did you decide upon Candlelight and how did that all come together?

"Basically when we got back from Sweden - from mixing the album - we took the pre-mastered songs, put them on to disc, made up some artwork, had some photos taken - sort of really quickly put together like a label submission kit. We did the exact same thing with the (2005) demo, but I think we put more time and energy into the demo one just because we wanted the pack that we sent out to be like really professional-looking. We had like covers printed up; we printed out all these reviews of the demo and interviews - printed out all this shit into this big thick pack that we sent along to the labels. This time we were thinking 'Well fuck, let's just let the material speak for itself, so we just put a quick photo that we had some friends do, a really small bio, the disc, and then we dropped that one music video that we made for 'Sinister Nation'. We dropped that on the same disc so you pop it into your CD player you can listen to the songs, and you could pop it into your computer and you could watch the video. So we just made that up and sent it off to our manager, Jeff (Keller). Now this was before we re-signed with Jeff. Basically when we got back from Sweden, we were like 'We don't know shit... who the hell do we get? Do we go back with Jeff or what do we do?' But we still kept in touch with Jeff and we talked to him and it seemed like he had some pretty good ideas. So we were like' Alright dude, help us shop this thing around. If we get picked up then we'll pick you up.' So it was basically sort of like a handshake deal. We said 'Alright man, if you can help us get signed, that's what we want you for.' And once we we're signed obviously we need him to handle all the other bullshit that we need to handle. But without a label we really didn't need him, so that's why we didn't re-sign with him after we didn't get picked up off the demo. So we set up a label submission kit off to Jeff and said 'Send it out man.' So he sent it out to several labels and we got contacted by a few, and because of the fact we haven't made any (other) deals, I don't really want to say what other labels we were talking to. But it seemed to me that there was more interest in this material than there was on the demo. Candlelight is the one that just really aggressive. They stepped up and said just flat out, 'Hey, we want to sign you; here's our offer.' The first bit of correspondence with them was 'here's an offer.' So we countered their offer and worked with them a little bit, and ended up coming up with something we both agreed on, and even though we were still talking to some other labels, these guys obviously have a great lineup, they have a great bunch of bands on their (roster). I've heard good things about them from people in the Metal scene that have had contact with them. We talk a lot with the A&R rep from the UK and like I said because of the fact that they were aggressive and definitely interested we knew that we'd have quick correspondence with them and that they were gonna back us and there were people that were obviously interested in helping to make SOTHIS go to the next step, so that's why we decided to go with them. Hopefully we'll be with Candlelight for a while. That's definitely something I'm hoping that we can establish - a long relationship, because so much of a headache is involved with making an album, getting it released, and then dealing with touring and booking and all that bullshit, and to have to re-learn the whole process with another label with how they handle things, I'd much rather build a relationship with people that I trust and that will hopefully last a long time as opposed to bouncing around with a different label every album. It just seems like a huge pain in the ass, you know. We'd like to avoid that at all costs, but of course, we're always going to look out for the best interests of SOTHIS."

You have to. You put all this work into your band - there's no other way.

"Yeah."

Now you stated that you are definitely going to try to get to Canada and do a U.S. tour...

"We're going to try and get everywhere in the world, dude. I mean, we're a really young band as far as how long we've been in the scene, and this is our first professional record label deal. So if we're going to tour obviously they're going to attach us to somebody that's a wider national act, you know. Chances are they're going to send somebody - a headliner from Europe - and whatever; then that happens and the tour is already booked... they're gonna want to put an American band that's on their label on the tour to support that act without them having to fly another smaller European band over, and then pay for visas, then pay for flight, bus and all that bullshit, you know. So hopefully they'll get some decent acts coming over from Europe and they'll thrown us and attach us to the tour. So as far as where we go, that's not going to be us for a very long time (laughs). Maybe on a third album we'll be able to get a headlining tour - or maybe on our second (album) - but you know, it's gonna take time for us to build the name SOTHIS here in the U.S. and over in Europe. It's going to take some time before we're gonna be ready to take on a headlining tour of our own, and until that happens I don't think we're going to be in charge of any picking of where we play. Like the label is gonna say 'Here's where this tour is going, these are the dates, can you guys do it, and do you want to do it?' That's when we'll go 'yes' or 'no' (laughs). So if there's one that goes to Canada, hell yeah we'll play through Canada. There isn't any place that I don't want to play, really. I wanna play anywhere where we're gonna have heads come out and check out SOTHIS, 'cause I want to play our music for everybody that wants to hear it."

And Helsinki, right?

"Helsinki would be badass, dude! (laughs) I love America too. I want to play here. I mean we had a great time playing through New Mexico, Arizona and Texas. Just everywhere we went we met really cool fucken people. We're just looking forward to doing more of that as much as possible."

I think you guys will be a major force in the Metal scene in the U.S. If not Metal as a whole, then Black Metal for sure.

"Thanks man, we're working on it."

Your voice is pretty unique.

"Thanks man. I appreciate that. I don't know... it's hard for me to be objective. When I listen to myself I have my own thoughts about what I like and what I don't like about my performances and stuff, so it's hard to listen to me and be objective about it. I've had people tell me I sound like lots of people."

I don't think so. I mean there is always that distinction of Black Metal. It seems to me that it takes a lot more talent to sing Black Metal because there are a lot of falsettos in there and the higher level of screaming. You have a wide range - you can go from low to high...

"Yeah, for me that's what turns me off a lot of bands is when the singers voice is too monotonous; there's not enough variation in the voice. Like I'll listen to a band and I'll really like the vocals, and everything about it, and just after four or five songs it just gets kind of boring when the vocals don't change any inflection at all. So I've pushed myself to have a wider range and I'm definitely still in need of improvement in that area. I think on the next album I'm going to work on just sort of forcing myself to come up with more creative vocal patterns, you know, and in sort of the way I present the voice. Obviously your limited by your range in what simply your vocal chords can handle, you know, but with more experience and time hopefully I'll be able to learn how to control it even more and come up with some more creative ideas - shit that's not necessarily been heard before or presented in a new way at least, you know what I'm saying? So that when people listen to the music they're gonna say 'Well, shit it's still screaming Black Metal vocals but I've never really heard anybody use their voice quite like that.' That's my ultimate goal, I guess."

So what next?

"I'm doing all the artwork for the CD booklet and that's pretty much what I'm focusing on right now... finishing up that artwork and getting it ready to go out to the printers and everything. Meanwhile, my drummer, Dross, is handling getting the CD mastered at Tailor Maid studios by Peter in de Betou. It's in Stockholm, Sweden so the CD is going back to Sweden to have it mastered and then it will come back to us." [FIN]